Fly Aiprt,
‘… were the sim demonstrations last month conducted on updated simulators, or not ?’
See my comments #8, “The simulator demos…”
It might not be possible to establish the standard of simulator used, but the timescales between demo and public notification of the problem suggest that the demo simulator was not updated. However, the standard of simulation might be irrelevant, particularly as the principle of the problem was identified during the demo.
The future relevance of a modified simulator is in the realism of a trim runaway. Particularly the crew’s ability to recognise the failure amongst potential confusion of ‘recently’ added trimming systems (STS, MCAS) and lack of ‘failure’ annunciation, and then physically recover the aircraft to a trimmed condition. The latter even more important if the point of ‘inability’ is significantly before the limit of the stab screw jack, different to that previously thought - less time for recognition and action.
A more speculative problem would be if the Boeing engineering simulator had a similar weakness, only identifiable when compared with the accident FDRs.
1_of_600, an ‘omission’ if the aircraft characteristic was previously known. If unknown then its a ‘flaw’, a big flaw in aircraft certification.